I will be going to the Isle of Man TT in June and am hoping to take some descent pictures of the bikes at speed. I havetaken some at Cadwell park race meetingbutI seem to be getting blurred pictures in auto mode and it seems to have a long shutter lag when following the bikes with the camera.

Could anyone help with the best settings for taking pictures of bikes or cars at speed.

There's a sports mode on the S7000 which makes for faster shutter speed (by increasing aperture to maximum and maybe by adjusting ISO), too. Look at the knob/dial on the top of the camera. There's an icon of a what looks like a guy running. That's it.

The other suggestion is to pan with the camera as the cars pass. Prefocus on the spot where you want to take the picture, by pressing the shutter button halfway. Keep your finger pressed down, and then sweep along in the direction of the passing cars till they get where you want to take the picture.

You could also try to note the settings being used in the action mode, and set the camera to manual, mimicing those settings. Also try going to a manual focus, and focus on a specific sopt ahead of time, then pull the trigger at that point in your pan each time. Anything you can do yourself should reduce the lag.